


Persona 6: Fool's Wager

by theriverbankofthelethe



Series: Persona 6 [1]
Category: Persona Series
Genre: F/F, Violence, i'll be tagging as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25531135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriverbankofthelethe/pseuds/theriverbankofthelethe
Summary: Tomoki Yumi falls asleep on the train to Tokyo City when she has a dream. It is not a nice dream. And everything falls apart from there.Her first few days are plagued with deja vu and strange emotions that come from nowhere, as well as more vivid dreams. She dreams of people before she meets them in real life. She knows things she shouldn't and there's a voice calling to her, telling her to prepare for war. And on her first night in Tokyo, she dreams of a blue room. But soon it's no longer limited to her imagination when she and two of her classmates walk through a door into the world of subconscious.(Who doesn't want to write an edgy, self-indulgent original Persona game?)
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Series: Persona 6 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1849909
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. ???

Persona 6:

Chapter ?̶͈̺̩̦̃͗ͅ?̴͚̞͕͌̿̏̆?̶̧̖͚̞̩͒̄̚ : The Tail of the Ouroboros

Ń̴̳͘ơ̴͉̙̞͌̔͋ ̶̨̨̢̐̀̓̊D̵̘̞̯͍͚̲̟͔͓̘̗͎̟͌͂̇͘á̴̛̘̩̠̦͌̀̐͆̍̅͗͋͜͝ţ̴̰̞̯̝̙̈́͊e̸͓̺̰̒̽̆͌̆̿̔̏̔  
̴̳̺̹̙̙̞̼̼̞̺̲̂̔̽̾͌̒̋̀̿͘͜N̵͓͍͈̓͋̀̌̌̇̚ͅo̶͍̺̘̘̻̬̠̔̿͛̔͆͛̒̂̔̌͑́ ̸̡̨̹̣̰̺̪̘̃́D̴̨̘̤͉̗̞͗̈́͑̏̕å̷̪̈́̽̆̈́̆̊͌̃́́̌̕͘̚y̵̨̘̣̝͚̜̘͠

A dreamer dreamed of nothing.

Of a great ocean of absence, a null value, brimming with the endless potential of the negative not bound by an existence. It was the everything and nothing, the paradox of the singular dimension. A continuous whole with no end or beginning, the infinity of zero that had no point of reference to measure it from. There was no difference, no separation. Nothing but a roiling black sea of unfathomable depth and pitch black sky without even a horizon to divide them. All that could be was void.

The beginning, the end. The before and the after. The darkness before the light, and the death after life. The nothing.

And then, there was something.

From the churning waters rose a single scrap of land. It had no description, as if it was more the concept of land itself than any specific terrain, but it stood in contrast to the nothing surrounding it, turning the one of nothing into two of something. Separate from the primeval waters and beneath pitch black void, becoming the other to all else, land and sea-sky created existence in their difference.

And upon this land were two more, turning all of existence from sea-sky and land to land, sea-sky, and two others. Four things existed now, existing and giving existence to each other. Land, sea-sky, a serpent, and a woman, once again all lacking description beyond what they were.

A beginning. An ending. Both.

For the dreamer, it was less a sight than a incredible awareness, a knowledge of what was occurring in the dark, for there was no light to illuminate the scene nor air to carry the vibrations that birthed sound. It was a deep, intimate understanding forced upon the dreamer that could not be ignored.

The serpent and woman fought upon the land, ferocious and unrelating. They were equally matched, in rage if not in skill, neither willing to give the other ground for long. Sometimes their conflict slowed, their intense combat turning to light skirmishing. Other times they tore themselves to pieces on the other, throwing themselves into the fight like foot soldiers upon a line of wooden stakes only far more willing, teeth and fangs bared with ageless fury as the meat was stripped from their bones and wounds were reopened again and again and again. The serpent almost always had the upper hand, driving the woman to her knees and tearing her open until she knew nothing but pain, but the woman always stood up, refusing the die or give as she struck her own blows with blunted nails and teeth not meant for fighting but capable of rending flesh nonetheless. They had always fought like this, the dreamer knew, and would fight for an eternity more for neither would ever yield and without defeat, there could be no victory.

The dreamer watched, but a passive observer as the serpent and woman traded blows and words and pain, a witness to the horror, of blood and bile dripping on to the land. It was horrible but somehow terribly real, enough to make the bones feel uncomfortable beneath the skin.

“Why?” the serpent hissed, a creature of red and sand as the woman gouged out his eye with her fingers, his voice as rough and coarse as grinding wind and the dreamer could barely make out his words. “Why do you still fight?”

“I will never stop,” the woman snarled, the serpent throwing her off with a single flex of his thick body and then pouncing, fangs sinking deep into her shoulder. It burned like acid, the dreamer knew, an indescribable pain as blood bubbled in the woman’s veins and her skin withered like curling paper. The woman growled and grabbed the serpent’s head, tearing him off and slamming him into the land beneath them, again and again and again until the head was dented completely out of shape. “I will not give in. I will exist!”

The dreamer watched as the serpent wriggled free, wrapping his around the woman’s neck and squeezing. The woman choked, eyes bulging, fingers digging into the muscly noose until blood began to well up from beneath her nails. The wounds existed but did not exist, both always there and never was, the cause and effect of linear time necessary to cause permanent damage time long since dissolved and leaving behind nothing but a paradox. It was only in the fragile mind that time came into being now, a mere product of cognition that had to be met half-way by reality in order to truly be.

Yet still, trapped between, it also meant that wounds could never heal. Agony that was and was not, except even when it wasn’t the memory of it remained.

The dreamer dreamed of an eternity upon this little isle in the void-dark sea, where there was no light nor colour nor time to measure. Of injuries that would never heal nor fade but also never exist in the first place. The dreamer dreamed of a serpent and of a woman, and of the indescribable suffering the woman shouldered as she kept fighting and the freezing hatred burning cold within her breast. A nightmare of the truest order, seen from a distance but known intimately like a mother, biting and cold and terrifying in her hatred.

The dreamer dreamed of what kept the woman from falling, of burning threads tied around her heart that pulled taunt whenever she faltered. Of memories of people the dreamer did not know but were achingly familiar, like they should be known, scattered voices that made the soul scream with yearning from the knowledge they rested just beneath the surface of the water, kept from nonexistence by this single woman’s memory to them. Threads of existence, of devotion and heat, with the potential to be something almost worth saving.

The serpent yelled something that the dreamer did not understand, throwing the woman against the land once her fingers had been driven knuckle-deep past his scales, forcing him to let her go. The woman hit the land with a terrible thud, of something solid and heavy but still with some give, and the dreamer knew the end was finally coming.

The beginning?

The woman rolled to her knees, coughing and laughing in equal measure as curdled blood dripped from burning wounds. She turned her head up to stared at the serpent with a vindictive grin and joyless eyes because all she had left was this pointless defiance. Not even the lightless void without event the concept of colour had manage to dull the brilliant pale blue of her glare. “No, you won’t.”

The dreamer knew those eyes, even more familiar than the threads pulling at her heart.

The serpent screamed for it knew she was right, knew that the woman would never falter for if she ever would, in this timeless void with no division between the past and present, she would have done so. No, this woman would never yield, would never surrender, and would never die.

“So long as you exist, so will I!” the serpent threatened, the wretched evil thing finally wavering, finally faltering after infinity had passed them by with no change and an eternity more stretched before them. “We will never stop fighting! Forever in combat, trying to destroy each other but never succeeding!”

“Fine,” the woman spat, staggering to her feet and clinging to the worn threads of a beautiful tapestry now unwoven, numb to his threats even though she knew he would follow through.

“Let us become nothing! Let us be destroyed!” the serpent howled like the storms that wore down mountains and empires into lifeless sand, the destruction that sought the non-existence of everything and all, including itself.

“No!” shouted the woman, her voice hoarse from screaming and crying but still strong with the doomed certainty of the already damned.

“Everything else is already gone!”

“Which is why I must continue!”

“It wasn’t meant to go this way!”

There was silence. True silence, for there was no sound at the end of the world when even the woman and the serpent seemed to hold their breath for a brief moment.

The woman paused, the serpent mimicking her sudden stop. Then, the corners of her mouth twitched. Her eyes glinted with a terrible mania. Then she leaned back and laughed and laughed and laughed, a wild mirthless howl that was swallowed by the endless void as the serpent watched warily.

It was not battle madness, nor cruelty or exhaustion, which the serpent had already seen and more. This was something else, both deeply bitter and endlessly amused. A complete breakdown in the face of callous absurdity.

And the dreamer knew this all too well.

“Why do you laugh?” the serpent demanded angrily, nothing but anger now after so much useless, endless fighting, thwarted and impotent for so long.

“You think you’re the only one who things went wrong for?” the woman asked spitefully, lips twisting into something ugly and cold. “This is a stalement, serpent, not a victory. The only thing I have left is depriving you of your success.”

The serpent seemed to calm, and for the first and only time upon this pathetic strip of creation in the primordial sea, they had stopped fighting.

The serpent seemed to calm, and the dreamer knew that for the first and only time on this strip of creation in the primordial sea, they had stopped fighting.

“You want something else,” the serpent observed.

The woman scoffed as she had every right to, for the serpent was a foolish one to think otherwise. “Of course I do.”

“So do I.”

“That’s how a stalemate works,” the woman agreed, her smile sharp and cruel. “Neither of us get our way.”

The dreamer knows this, as well as the bittersweet smugness born of spite and grief it brings, but does not remember why. Does not remember why the terrible serpent is deserving of freezing, searing hate. Nor why the threads wrapped around the woman’s heart with a burning, blazing heat lead into the dark and the sea, burning with both hope and regret and something the dreamer can no longer put a name to, long forgotten, perhaps purposefully so.

“Then how about something else? A deal? A bet, even,” the serpent proposed, slimy and oily, slithering closer for once with his fangs sheathed. The dreamer feels it, a brief flash of victory, a burst of smug pride tempered by desperation, and does not know why.

And the woman could not hide the gleam of interest in her eye, glittering and sharp as a blade’s edge. “What sort of bet?” and the dreamer knows she has a cunning plan of her own.

“A wager of the best kind.”

“I’m listening.”

“Good,” the serpent hissed.

And the dreamer was suddenly plunged into the ice cold sea.

Struggling now, no longer the mere memory of a ghost but present and surrounded by the horrible terrible vastness of the void, the dreamer clawed desperately at the dark in an instinctive attempt to reach the non-existent surface as the black water invaded the body. An intimate agony, the raw pain of liquid in the lungs and choking on pitch ink. Cold too, freezing, chilling, absolute zero in a way that should be impossible without the complete absence of heat.

The land and the serpent and the woman, growing farther and farther away as the dreamer sank deeper upwards, dragged by the invisible riptide of a black hole. Away away away, the dreamer fell, the serpent and woman growing smaller and more distant, awareness of them fading as she drowned in the black sea.

And the dreamer could not know much else, except for a blue butterfly, the exact same bright brilliant shade as her eyes, gently settling on woman’s head, and did not hear what wager the serpent suggested or how the woman responded. But the dreamer did see the woman smile, joyless and shrewd, as she gently brushed the butterfly aside.

The dreamer was drowning.

The dreamer was dying.

And the dreamer wakes.

_You wake._


	2. The Devil in Plain Sight

Part 1: Prologue

Chapter 1: The Devil In Plain Sight

**4/8/2018  
Sunday  
Evening  
Half Moon**

A girl jerked awake like she had once again dreamed of falling, heart in her throat as she was thrown from the subconscious a fraction of a second before hitting the ground. Gasping and tense, she lurched forward and clutched the duffle bag sitting on her lap like it could ground her in reality and drive the water from her lungs, fingers digging into the low-quality canvas that contained everything she owned. The steady sway of the train that had lulled her to sleep now only made her feel nauseous.

_You feel sick._

In the seat beside her, no doubt disturbed by her sudden start, a man stirred as well. An average—if a little frazzled—businessman, hardly different from the many that surrounded her, his suit only slightly rumpled and black hair in mild disarray. The one strange thing about him was the red-rimmed sunglasses sitting slightly askew on his nose, which were peculiar both for their contrast against his otherwise utterly bland appearance, and the fact he was wearing tinted sunglasses inside a train during the evening.

It was stifling hot in the crowded train car, the air stale and heavy to the point it was difficult to breath. She was wedged uncomfortably between the businessman and the end of the seat row. Sweat-slick hair clung to her forehead, droplets trickling down her back where her shirt wasn’t plastered to the skin. In front of her, all she could see was the identically-suited torsos of adults who had been stuffed into the small space like dolls carelessly crammed into a forgotten drawer by some negligent owner. The background noise of the chattering was almost deafening to her ears.

Yet despite her environment, she couldn’t stop the slight tremble of her body as the dream settled in her mind like heavy tar, her very bones chilled by the memory of freezing black water surrounding her, filling her lungs, flooding every crevice until it felt like it had replaced the warm blood in her veins. The harsh fluorescent that illuminated sterile white plastic stood in stark contrast to the blinding darkness of her nightmare, colours appearing washed out beneath the artificial glare.

But it had all been a dream. Nothing but a weird, strange, terrifyingly lucid dream, regardless of how real it may have felt. She had just fallen asleep on the train, no more. She was no stranger to nightmares either—even if this one had taken a vastly different form than usual, and continued to linger in a way nightmares had not since she was young—so there was no need for concern. She was back in reassuringly monotonous reality where she belonged, with its dull shades of grey and artificial neon that flickered just as weakly as the people, buzzing with both neglect and overuse.

Still, she could not banish the ghost of it, even as the details faded, could not forget the true nothingness of the void or the words exchanged between the faceless woman and the serpent, submerged in the icy black water whose chill was echoed in the sweat cooling on her skin. Nor could she ignore the headache that began to grow into a steady pounding behind her eyes, or the way the tattoo beneath her clothes prickled painfully with a thousand frozen needles. Nausea made her hug her duffle tighter to her, swallowing in an attempt to banish the feeling. It did not work.

“I think I know you.”

She turned, and was greeted by the shiny reflective surface of her neighbour’s sunglasses. She felt a crawling sense of unease as the nausea increased.

_Do you know him? You don’t… remember._

“I don’t think you do,” she said quietly as she shifted as far away from him as she could manage, but he leaned closer and her skin itched uncomfortably, unable to see his eyes behind his glasses but acutely aware of the intensity of his gaze. Should she stand up and lose her seat to put some distance between herself and the man? How long had he been looking at her, she wondered.

“Hmm. No, I’m sure of it now. You were just a little kid then, but now look at you, ready to tear down the world!” He grinned, seemingly delighted as he spoke to her like she was a beloved niece he had not seen in years.

Now thoroughly unnerved to the point even her nightmare had taken a back-seat, though not forgotten, she tightened her expression into one of high-strung disapproval and straightened her back. She hadn’t decided what character she was going to hide behind this time, what person she was going to pretend to be, but the city was a big place. The chance of encountering this guy again was slim so it probably didn’t matter what she did to get him to back off. And prim, professional and forceful, while not good for making friends, was ideal for when she wanted to be left alone without making a scene. So long as it wasn’t taken as a challenge. Men liked a challenge.

“Excuse me, but if this is some weird pick-up attempt, I’m a bit too young for whatever you’re proposing,” she stated cooly, making it very clear she was both disinterested and annoyed. She carefully schooled everything, from her tone to her body language, into something that could not be mistaken for anything but intense irritation.

“So you don’t remember me? How… disappointing,” the man sighed, and she bristled at his slimy tone of displeasure, like it was somehow a failure of her’s rather than his own problem for harassing girls on trains.

Worryingly enough though, she did feel a sense of familiarity. A very intense one actually. Less like deja vu and more like a memory just out of reach, or perhaps within reach but somehow concealed, fingers scrabbling against smooth obsidian walls where there should be a thought. It made her head hurt and the stomach roil, something like bile rise up in the back of her throat only it was ice cold. She swallowed it back down, but it did little beyond pushing the feeling further into her gut, and her lungs tickled like she needed to cough.

“I’m sorry,” she said with a dramatically forced politeness, wound herself up in her own anger to properly convey that she was not worth the effort. “But I fail to see how that is my problem.”

“You will soon,” the man said, adjusting his sunglasses and looking away. He had an odd way of speaking, the S’s unusually sharp. “But I’ve waited a long time, my darling harbinger. I can wait a little bit more.”

It was a clear dismissal and she nearly sneered at the man’s gall, being such a creep only to act like he had been the one to end the conversation. But she didn’t, because her head was swimming and the train kept swaying and she felt like any second she was going to hurl.

The train stopped. “Well, this is where I get off,” the man said, not looking her way but his words clearly meant for her.

She didn’t reply, not wanting to encourage him.

“That reminds me.” He stood up and pinned her beneath his stare, body turned towards the open door. “I never got your name.”

A shiver ran down her spine, only it was also kinda painful and sticky, near sickly like a fever. For a brief moment, she saw a shuddering afterimage, a memory once again just out of reach or blocked or simply gone, leaving only behind the ghost of knowledge, of a blue room and a song and her name signed in rich blue ink.

_Your name is…_

_Tomoki Yumi._

But she didn’t say it, and this time she did sneer, lacking both the energy and the fucks to keep up at least a modicum of civility, because she was tired and annoyed and even if she had only just met him, it felt like she had hated this man before. It’s not like it would matter anyways, not when she’d never see him again. “None of your business, asshole.”

“I’ll learn it eventually.” He shrugged with a careless confidence, then slipped through the doors a moment before they closed. And for a brief moment, she swore she saw yellow under his sunglasses.

The girl named Tomoki Yumi frowned, fidgeting in her seat. The tattoo under her shirt continued to burn cold.

_You feel sick._

~o0o~

At fifteen, Tomoki was relatively tall for her age, almost always the tallest girl in her class and often taller than many of the boys. Her hair was dark and thick and overly long, the varying lengths that made it almost spiky signalling that the length was a matter of neglect rather than intent. She also had narrow, angular eyes, the colour a light shade of crystalline blue that was both sharp and cold, and a heart-shaped face that was almost soft when it wasn’t like stiff old plastic chipped at the edges.

It was a good thing she had woken up when she did since it wouldn’t take much longer to arrive at her stop, she knew. Until then, she scrolled some internet forums on her phone, chin resting on the duffle on her lap as she tried in vain to banish her nausea and the cold burn of her tattoo. It was the usual clickbait nonsense, but like bad TV, it passed the time.

_joltcustody  
posted 11:21am - guys i think i had a rl encounter with a spirit or smth last night!! i was walking home last night when i see this see-through lady floating nearby. she was super strange looking with grey skin and a green short kimono with a large comb on it for some reason. should i worry about any bad mojo or hauntings?_

_anon  
posted 11:32am - haha, no way_

_mistukikiki  
posted 11:41am - troll_

_anon  
posted 11:45am - smoething like that happened to me_

_WaluigiIsBae  
posted 12:09am - ugh, another one of these lies? their FAKE!_

_superspooksavior  
posted 12:43pm - and let me guess, the camera on your phone didn’t work either_

_dimensionXXX  
posted 1:03pm - just looking for attention_

It also had the benefit of familiarizing her with whatever bullshit specific to her new location was going around. And the big city had a lot of bullshit.

_kekmaster404  
posted 3:02pm - so anyone talking about how the body of another missing person washed up in america and it wasn’t even on the news_

_anon  
posted 3:53pm - they report people missing but not when there found dead_

_spoopybones  
posted 4:17pm - you mean Hashi Torano right? he was in the apartment above mine and on the night he went missing we heard lots of noise and stuff before the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate. no one was allowed in the apartment after_

_anon  
posted 4:34pm - that must be creepy_

_anon  
posted 4:45pm - liar_

_Conspirazee  
posted 5:10pm - someone confessed to killing him though_

_anon  
posted 5:23pm - yeh but who knows if thats true_

_thenedisnigh  
posted 6:23pm - do you think theres another goverment conspiracy behind the disappearances like the mental shutdowns_

_Mimicko  
posted 6:54pm - I think its just a serial killer_

_anon  
posted 7:03pm - this has been happening a lot with the same MO so theres obviously a connection_

_anon  
posted 7:43pm - the police are useless_

_anon  
posted 7:21pm - but why are the bodies always found in miami?_

(Conspiracy boards were her favourite. Ranging from the utterly insane to the concerningly realistic, especially after an actual government conspiracy was uncovered a few years back, there was always someone ready to bring up a new theory or cryptid sighting, as well as twenty to call them full of bullshit).

The most recent internet rumours about the Tokyo area were about what she expected—urban myths, life hacks and gossip. More speculation than she would have guessed about the capabilities of the police though. Then again, Tokyo was the place the Phantom Thieves fad first appeared and seemed to be based around, so perhaps the skepticism was a remnant of that.

“Now approaching Shimokitazawa Station,” blared through the cramped train car, the announcer’s voice almost lost to the static of the poor speaker. The thin squeal of the train slowing down mixed with the surrounding chatter, creating a new hellish noise specifically designed to stab at her brain. She grimaced, burying her face into her duffle bag.

Despite her overwhelming desire to not get up and hopefully melt into blessed non-existence—or the plastic seat beneath her, either worked—Tomoki reluctantly hauled herself to her feet as the train pulled into the station. For a brief moment, her vision went black as the blood rushed to her feet and the nausea became near overwhelming.

She recovered quickly enough and wrestling her duffle bag over her shoulder—quite the feat in the cramped train car—grabbed onto the pole so she didn’t stumble when the train finally slowed to a stop. The crowd around her similarly shifted as people prepared to disembark.

The doors opened and Tomoki did her best to follow the flow out onto the platform without getting crushed, and instead ended up pressed uncomfortably close to strangers, stumbling as little from her light-headedness. Her stomach churned and there was something in the back of her throat that made her want to cough.

Yet as she staggered onto the platform and took in a deep breath of relatively fresh air, the sharp relief of freedom almost made up for it. She stretched, groaning even as it also triggered another dizzying blood rush. She readjusted her bag, straps cutting into her shoulder, and headed towards the escalator. She was hungry, tired, and still rather stiff, but it was the final leg of a journey she had done many times before in different times and places. She would be able to take a long-deserved rest soon. Naps on uncomfortable train seats that made her neck ache did not count as proper sleep and she knew that from experience. That was not even mentioning the nightmare, the memory of which that would no doubt continue to haunt her.

Standing just outside the station she pulled out her phone and double-checked the email from her new guardian informing her of their meeting spot. Right place. Where was she?

“Another missing person?” someone tutted nearby. “What are the police even doing?”

A small amount of curiosity fluttered to life in her chest. Tomoki did not fancy herself someone who listened in on private conversation, but a train station was hardly private, was it?

She turned her head slightly to better hear the pair of woman, one a rather a nonchalant middle-aged woman wearing bright red lipstick and the other a skittish younger woman in a pink skirt. There was a buzz of energy around them both, nervous and twitchy that made it hard to separate excitement from fear.

“I don’t know, but I hope nothing happens to me,” the skittish woman replied somewhat nervously, her small smile somewhat strained.

“With all the arrests, you’d think everything would have been sorted by now. It’s been two years! We really must wonder why…” the nonchalant woman—who was clearly only pretending to be nonchalant to draw the skittish woman into the conversation—mused in a way that clearly implied suspicion, despite the casual pretence. Her tone was eager and hushed, almost hungry in the morbidly fascinated way she spoke about the subject like it was some forbidden secret to salver over.

“I’m sure they’re trying their best,” the skittish woman protested, but without conviction.

The nonchalant woman—who was clearly more of a gossipy woman—did not seem impressed. “If that were true then the disappearances would have stopped after the first arrest. The real culprit is probably still out there–”

“Oh! Now I’m getting really worried!” the skittish woman—looking even more skittish—exclaimed, wringing her hands nervously.

Tomoki blinked before turning away as the woman in red lipstick began trying to reassure the woman in the pink skirt that nothing would happen to them of course, clearly realizing she had only caused her friend distress and promising they would walk home together just in case. Apparently talk about missing people and doubts about the police effectiveness reached beyond the digital world.

“Hey! Are you Tomoki Yumi?” she heard behind her. Tomoki turned and was greeted by a woman that, despite being too young to remember the last time they met, she just knew was her new guardian.

She was a little taller than Tomoki with short black hair curling around her jaw, straight bangs and a strong familial resemblance. Her eyes were almost exactly the same as Tomoki’s mother, dark and with a narrow angular shape. She wore a loose beige blouse with no sleeves, fitted black pants that stopped a bit past the knee, and black converse.

The most notable thing about her was the jewelry. What must have been several pounds of it was dripping off her like green from a willow tree, only it was all gold and silver and coloured beads on leather cords. It clinked and clanked quietly when she moved like wind chimes in a light breeze, at least ten bracelets on each arm and several studs in both ears. It was hard to tell if her choice in jewelry had any rhyme or reason; just that it all looked so interesting and clashed so horribly it must have been on purpose.

_She seems… familiar._

She stuck out her hand, the bracelets on her wrist jangling all the way, and gave Tomoki a crooked grin that didn’t quite exude the confidence that was clearly intended. “I’m Mai Sakai, your cousin on your mother’s side.”

“Please take care of me,” Tomoki replied automatically and took the hand, swallowing a swell of annoyance at the niceties. Her head was swimming again and she tried her best not to sway.

“Are you okay? You aren’t looking so good,” Mai asked worriedly and took a step closer, the concern in those particular eyes both incredibly unusual to Tomoki, and somehow known.

“I– I’m fine,” she mumbled before stumbling forward and blindly grabbing for purchase, unable to keep her knees from giving out as her strength suddenly left her.

“Wha– Shit! Tomoki–” Tomoki didn’t hit the ground. Instead she was caught in thin arms covered in warm metal, holding her firm against Mai’s body. “Do you need a hospital?!”

That familiar yet unknown feeling persisted at the restrained panic in Mai’s voice and the trace scent of fruity alcohol, and something within Tomoki recoiled as much as it resonated. She had never met Mai before, or if she did she certainly did not remember it, and yet there was a knot of feelings in her chest and she didn’t know why.

“No,” she mumbled into Mai’s shirt, pride forcing nothing less as she tried to push Mai away and stand on her own two feet. Impotent fury at her weakness made her near snarl, but she managed to restrain it. “Jus’ tired. M’fine.”

She couldn’t stop her speech from slurring as the headache progressed to a full-on migraine, bursts of white light stabbing her retinas like nothing had before. Her chest was burning, or maybe it was freezing, aching like thousands of ice-cold needles now lined the inside of her lungs. She barely managed to swallow down a heaving cough.

“I– are you sure?” Mai’s arms tightened as she was forced to take more of Tomoki’s weight, or at least Tomoki presumed that was why.

“Happens all th’ time,” she lied. “Blood sugar. Long ride. Jus’ gimme a moment."

“…Okay,” Mai finally relented. “Okay. Once you can stand, we’ll go home.”

Tomoki cleared her throat the best she could without actually coughing, the back of her throat hurting like she had eaten something cold too fast. She didn’t understand what was going on, it was all so strange and disorienting and confusing, her heart squeezing even though she had no reason to be emotional, but all she could do was keep moving forward.


	3. Welcome Back To The Velvet Room

Part 1: Prologue

Chapter 2: Welcome Back To The Velvet Room

 **4/8/2018  
Sunday  
Evening  
** **Half Moon**

What a terrible first impression, Tomoki thought morosely as she trailed behind Mai, the older woman periodically glancing over her shoulder as if to check Tomoki hadn’t collapsed on the street. Not even given a chance to decide who to pretend to be before making a fool of herself, unable to even stand on her own like some sort of stupid child.

Pathetic. Weak. Fucking _worthless_.

God, what Mai must think. Not that she cared, except she had to because Mai was the adult in charge and that meant she already held most of the cards while Tomoki had nothing but a bluff _she just screwed up_.

_Goddammit!_

She kept her eyes on the ground and her face blank and stony as Mai led them through the hazy streets of Shimokitazawa, storefronts glowing with soft light and bars buzzing with nightlife that was lively but not loud. She had read up on this place while waiting to board the train, a hot spot of hip youth culture, both artsy and part of the paradoxical mainstream avant-garde. In other circumstances, Tomoki would make note of the various thrift shops and vinyl stores and the even a theatre as they passed. But she didn’t, too focused on sulking to bother.

(She already knew they were there anyway).

It was uncomfortable to be so vulnerable in front of anyone, let alone the relative she was stuck with for the foreseeable future, bound by blood and obligation until her mother deigned to ship her elsewhere for reasons known only to her. It made her skin crawl and itch, pulled too tight over her too sharp bones, just barely covering the nests of insects that writhed beneath her flesh. Made her want to hide or brace or strike before stricken, grind her teeth until her jaw hurt and bite down until something bled to relive the pressure. And it was only made worse by her persistent disoriented, unnamable emotions bubbling up without warning or reason and a feeling of familiarity without memory.

Fuck she hated this. Her life. Goddamn everything.

Eventually they left the active urban streets behind and entered one of the quieter, more open residential areas of the district, one occupied by apartments and the occasional small house. The background noise here was the hum of the streetlights, the occasional voice drifting out an open window, a lone young man stumbling with vague purpose as he headed home muttering. Tomoki hardly needed to watch Mai’s back to know where to go, feet following an invisible path like she had walked it a thousand times before. The awkwardness ached, a silence that clogged the air and tasted sour and settled thick in her lungs like fog made solid.

“Here we are,” Mai finally said, coming to a stop in front of an older-looking three-story apartment, the wood worn and the plaster chipping, the type that would be classified as cheap rather than rustic. She gave Tomoki an uncertain smile.

Tomoki nodded, eyes still down.

Mai’s smile faltered. “Follow me.”

There was a metal staircase on the side of the building, simple but well supported and study. It didn’t shake when Mai stood on the first step, didn’t even sway. “We’re on the top floor,” Mai explained as they climbed. “There’s a family on the ground floor and the landlord lives in the basement. He’s a weird old guy but he’s pretty nice. Don’t let him start on his carvings though or he’ll never shut up.”

Mai opened the door leading into the apartment and they stepped into the front hall. The inside of homes always smelled unique, ever single one Tomoki had ever been to, but this one smelled familiar rather than strange and with it came another rush of vague but intense feelings. She suddenly relaxed in a way she could never remember doing, comforted and settled and something near content, and the shock of it had her tensing all over again.

“First door on the left is my room. Door on the right is the bathroom,” Mai said, pointing as they passed. The hallway eventually opened up into a living space/kitchen combo. The kitchen area had a island with two stools. The living area had a couch with its back to the kitchen, facing a small TV against the wall which was right beside the sliding doors that led to the small balcony.

“You’ll be staying in the room next to mine.”

“I get a room?” Tomoki asked, a little surprised. She hadn’t been expecting that. After all, why would Mai (a young twenty-something living in Tokyo) have a guest room?

Mai looked at her weirdly. “I’m not going to make you sleep in the couch for months. It used to be my roommate’s but she moved in with her boyfriend.”

Ah. So if things didn’t work out with the boyfriend, Tomoki would probably be on the couch, if not kicked out entirely. It was a matter of convenience.

“Thank you,” Tomoki said, just to be polite. No need to make Mai hate her yet.

Mai shifted a little. “I won’t be home often. I have work and friends and… stuff.” Of course, they always did. “But I’ll give you the run down.”

And Mai did.

The laundry machine was in the bathroom and there was a clothesline on the balcony. Anything in the fridge was fair game so long as there wasn’t a name on it. They had to be quiet at night because the family below them had a young kid. Don’t call unless it’s an emergency; text instead. The textbooks and uniform ordered for her new school were already in her room.

“Aunt Yumi said you were pretty independent–” Tomoki’s heart stuttered at the mention of her mother, cold bile rising up. “–so I’ll try not to step on your toes too much. But if you need help or anything you can ask. I can’t promise I’ll know what to do, but I’ll try.”

Yeah, sure. Of course. Mai meant well, but good intentions crumbled when it came time for action. Tomoki was rather sick of people promising things just to make themselves feel like they were good people.

“Sure,” Tomoki said instead, swallowing her feelings until all that was left was a bitter aftertaste. “Thanks.”

“Oh!” Mai clasped her hands together, smile plastered on like she was trying to make this a happy moment. “I got you a welcome present. I didn’t mean to but impulse shopping is a problem when you live in Shimokitazawa. Gimme a sec.”

Mai opened a cabinet and pulled out a small box. She turned back to Tomoki and opened it, pulling out a keychain with an oddly elaborate key and a charm “It’s a little lion, see?”

And indeed it was, a small female lion hanging from the key ring. Carved from dark lacquered wood with light blue gems for the eyes, the little creature had the kanji for protection carved into its side.

“Ah. Thank you,” Tomoki managed in a oddly strangled voice, taking the keychain and once again feeling a rush of indiscernible emotion. It felt warm in her hand, warm wood and metal and she imagined it breathing in her clenched fist.

“The key to the apartment is already on it. I had the landlord make a copy for you,” Mai added. “I had my roommate’s old key destroyed ages ago–” Mai must have a lot of faith in her roommate’s relationship lasting. “–so a new one was needed. Don’t mind the design, the landlord is… quirky.”

Silence fell between them once again. “I’m going to bed.” Tomoki finally said.

“Uh, yeah. You feeling good enough for school tomorrow?” Mai asked worriedly and Tomoki felt a stab of annoyance. Well-intentioned was better than cruel, she reminded herself, even if good-intentions often ended up being crueler than malice in the end. Soon they would fall into a rhythm of ignoring each other beyond the confines of Mai’s duty as a babysitter and entertaining the possibility anything else was just foolish at this point. Tomoki was sick of being foolish.

But for a moment, she did anyways. And hated herself for it.

“I’ll be fine,” Tomoki promised irritably, opening the door to her new room, the bottled anger turning blood to nitrogen and veins to ice. Out of all the things that felt familiar this evening, at least the anger was something she understood.

“Good night, then.”

“Night.”

Tomoki closed the door behind her.

(There were threads wrapped tight, tangled in her arteries, tugging at her heart).

~o0o~

**4/8/2018  
Sunday  
Night  
Half Moon**

If she thought sleep would fix… whatever was going on with her, she was quickly proven wrong.

First was the room. If the apartment was bad and Mai was even worse for making her feel like deja vu and a hangover had a particularly pissy baby, looking around the room made her near collapse again.

It was bare except for the bed, dresser, a shelf, and closet door. Upon the bed was a box which she knew contained her new textbooks and uniform. The walls were beige, the floor wooden, and it was all _wrong_.

Mai and the neighbourhood may have felt familiar, but this was like someone emptying her duffle bag and replacing it with stuff that was very similar but still not _her’s_. Slightly off in a way she couldn’t quite pin down, everything moved one inch to the left. The walls were too bare (which was weird because she had never been one for decorating) and the dresser and shelf lacked clutter (but she had never been one for hoarding) and it was just so… impersonal, even though she had long stopped being bothered by that. Even the sheets on the bed, a simple light non-offensive grey, weren’t right.

She hated it.

But Tomoki didn’t know _why_. Why was she feeling this way? She had stayed in worse places, and the idea that this room was distressing because it was too empty was baffling. Usually wherever she slept, dirt was a bigger concern, or the discomfort of sleeping surrounded by someone else’s clutter, someone else’s life. This room was clean and private and she wasn’t sleeping on a shitty futon. She had an actual _bed_. It was the goddamn Ritz compared to some places she’d slept.

The frustration swelled, as did the anger, quiet and cold and ruthlessly contained as it always was. It was an old foundation, a fury that was practically a part of her; so much of it a helpless sort of rage, a useless hate, finding release only in acts of misdirected cruelty and spite. And she hated that too.

She hated this room and this apartment and Mai and the stupid keychain still clenched in her fist. She hated her mother and her father’s deadbeat ashes and the world and every last person in it. She hated the way she assumed God, if she existed, loved the world—pettily and maliciously but deservedly so, probably.

She was so fucking tired and it wasn’t the traveling that did it.

After some staring, and unable to completely banish the chills as she sat on the bed that creaked just right (though it still didn’t smell right at all), she opened her duffle bag and pulled out her sleeping clothes. She would put everything else away in the morning when she could think straight.

Sleep was hard to come by though, unnerved and discomforted as she was. Her fingers were like ice even beneath the covers and skin on her tattoo was still fucking freezing. Another thing she hated, that goddamn tattoo. A black and ugly thing with horrid red eyes, wrapped around her side, and now it was hurting and aching with tight pins and needles like she didn’t have enough to deal with. She coughed into her pillow and swallowed it back down, and it stung like raw mint only a thousand times more intense.

But she managed. She always did. She closed her eyes and forced her body to be still, ignored her pounding heart and the way she sometimes she jerked back to full wakefulness moments before falling asleep. She pretended not to notice the way she still held on to that stupid keychain, clenched tight in her fist like she was some sort of infant. She didn’t know why she couldn’t let it go.

And then, finally falling unconscious after what must have been hours of trying, she found herself trapped in another strange dream. Certainly less frightening than the nightmare she had on the train, and she was acutely aware she was dreaming, but it was weird nonetheless.

Blue. Blue was the first thing she saw, a very specific shade of rich vibrant blue that seared its way into her mind before coalescing into something more material. And a woman singing and a piano and a song.

She found herself standing in a room. A locker room, she recognized, if one that seemed to have no ceiling and instead rows upon rows of metal doors that stacked upwards to infinity. Yet even in its almost painfully normal design it felt almost… disconnected from reality, making what should have been mundane distorted as if viewed through thick glass until the familiar became uncanny. The entire room seemed somewhat warped, the rectangular walls curving upwards and inwards as if space itself was being bent rather than the stone and metal. Everything was some shade of blue, though whether it was the soft light that illuminated the space, its natural colour, or some combination thereof was unknown. Oddly enough—so out of place yet fitting in seamlessly—dark velvet was draped across the metal benches and on the tiled floor, and from the walls there was even more velvet where there were not lockers,.

“Ahh, it seems our guest has arrived... Already possessing a contract… How intriguing…” a high-pitched yet oddly soothing voice mused, unnerving not in how it was like insects skittering through the undergrowth but how in it wasn’t unnerving at all. “Well then… welcome back to the Velvet Room. A place that exists between mind and matter, reality and dreams.”

It was a man only he was not a man. His appearance was frightening, deformed, human only in the loosest sense with spindly elongated limbs, large bloodshot eyes that bulged out of his skull, and a long nose that extended well past his chin. His grin stretched unnaturally wide, curving up to his cheekbones in a manner that should have been impossible with a normal human anatomy. Dressed in a stylish suit, he sat on a bench with his legs spread out and his elbows resting on his knees, his long fingers pressed together. In front of him was a simple folding table draped in a sheet of blue velvet, far from magnificent but able to serve its purpose.

And there was another man, or boy, standing rigid beside him, no less otherworldly in his presence, but much more human, at least in appearance. He was handsome, even beautiful, in a cold, untouchable way, with a sharp face and stern expression. His silver hair was cut short and his complexion so pale and smooth it was like marble. In the soft blue light his golden eyes seemed to glow, or perhaps they would have shone with an unnatural inner light regardless. He seemed young, not terribly so; certainly older than Tomoki but no more than eighteen if judged solely by appearance, and probably younger still. There was a certain immaturity that softened his features, and a certain stiffness that came from a youth trying to act much older. It appeared as though he had once been dressed rather formally in what looked like a blue military uniform, but he had taken off the jacket and tied it around his waist by the sleeves while forgoing the hat entirely, leaving on only a white undershirt, black shoes, white gloves, and dark blue pants. Under his arm was a thick book.

And it was so. Painfully. _Familiar_.

“Why don’t we get reacquainted then? My name is Igor,” Igor continued, his smile stretching wider if that was even possible, the corners crawling further and further up his face to reach the bottom of his ears. “Would you mind gifting us with your name?”

 _Your name is… Tomoki Yumi_.

“Tomoki. Tomoki Yumi,” slipped past her lips without hesitation, without thought, an instinctive form trust where there should be none. Names, she knew, were important (though she did not know who told her so).

She heard the soft piano and a voice singing at the edges of her mind coming from a place unknown, yet was unable to pinpoint its source for it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Perhaps, were she in the proper state of mind, she would have questioned this strange turn of events, would have wondered and worried and asked about her situation. Been angry, been furious, been _scared_. Yet that calming song that tickled the edges of her consciousness lulled her further into a passive daze so deep that, when combined with the very nature of the Velvet Room, she did not even feel the disorientation that had plagued her since the train to Tokyo. All she felt was safe, and comfort, and peace, and unlike when she first entered Mai’s warm apartment, lacked the awareness to be alarmed by that.

Tomoki did not speak, did not have the will to, but tilted her head to the side in silent curiosity.

“It is a pleasure. This young man is William. He is my assistant and will be your attendant for the duration of your journey.”

The boy—William—stepped forward and tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. As he looked at her, something in his eyes (something Tomoki didn’t recognize _but she should!_ ) glinted. “I am William.” His voice was strong and firm and a little grim. “I will not fail you.”

 _Again_ , she heard, never spoken but there, in his tone, in his eyes, in the promise in his voice. _Again_ , the silence whispered, and it was almost like remembering.

And he paused, a flicker of confusion as if he didn’t know where that came from. Tomoki frowned slightly, words bubbling up without the memory of their reason. “You didn’t,” she said.

William suddenly looked less untouchable, less inhuman, his apparent youth accentuated by the confusion and frustration colouring the edges of his expression as he stared at her like he should know her and she should know him.

Igor watched, round eyes gleaming. “How… fascinating… I do believe you have met before.”

Had they?

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember because she knew she should—this room, William, Mai; ever since the nightmare of a black sea and sky and serpent she had felt like she was forgetting, forgetting something _important,_ and here, standing in this room, she was more certain than ever—but she ended up scrabbling against a slick walls and blinding static where she knew it should be, where it was _supposed to be and_ —

“Calm yourself…” Igor interrupted and Tomoki realized she was holding her head, hunched over, nails digging into her scalp and scratching deep furrows until she bleeding enough that there was something was trickling down the side of her face. William was watching, closer than he had been before, hand held up hesitantly as if about to reach out and touch her and Tomoki flinched, making him yank his hand away as if she had burned him.

“Why don’t I… remember,” she whispered hoarsely, holding her blood-sticky hands close to her chest. She felt vulnerable, raw, the music worming deep into her very soul and splitting it open for the world to stare. Why was she here, what couldn’t she remember, what purpose did this place serve, and she knew she should know but she _didn’t_ and–

There were thin threads wrapped tight around her heart and they _burned_.

“Why do you not? A good question.” Igor pressed the ends of his fingers together. “Especially in the Velvet Room, where the subconscious is more close to the surface, and the forgotten is more easily recalled…”

Silence fell with nothing but the music between them, contemplative on the part of the room’s residents and frightened frustration on Tomoki’s. She reached and reached and _reached_ and found nothing until–

A spark, a burst, a recollection; a moment frozen in time overlayed on the present but also fractured, fractals, a broken mirror viewed through a cracked kaleidoscope. Much the same but slightly different, Igor still at his table only William was still at his side rather than a step closer to her. The angle was slightly different too, like everything was smaller or she was… taller?

“Ahh, it seems our guest has arrived…” the other Igor said, voice echoing and distorted. “Welcome to the Velvet Room–”

A sharp pain, her head splitting, her heart squeezing, and she was falling and drowning in the black and–

“Tomoki!” William cried.

And Tomoki passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment. Please. Let me know all 22 hits (which is the current number at the time of posting) weren't all accidents because I'm pretty sure most were.


	4. Memories In A Warped Mirror

Part 1: Prologue

Chapter 3: Memories In A Warped Mirror

A door. A long key the length of her forearm with jagged teeth made of ice. The sky a swirling nebula of colour, studded with millions of lights like glitter on satin. Black cracks spiderweb across the cosmos.

_Don’t you remember?_

A tall man, adorn in metal. A one-eyed boy stands beside him, face stern but determined. Large hands shoving her forwards and away. Desperation.

“Run! Go! We’ll be fine!”

They’re the first to fall.

But not the last.

_Childish_ , she thinks and laughs. _Such a cute kid_. The child whines, clings to her shirt and begs for a story. _The world is cruel though._ She knows this child has already learned bitterness.

She prays. She confesses. For the first time, there’s understanding.

“I’m telling the truth!” he lies.

“He is,” she lied too, grabbing his hand in hers. He squeezes tightly. They know the others will lie for them as well.

She sits, silent as she draws the thread through and through over again. An image is beginning to form. Slowly, she begins to feel lighter. She starts to sing quietly.

Her cousin, eyes wide, rushes her. She braces for a hit, and is embraced instead. It’s tight, and she’s trembling, and she’s so shocked she forgets to push away. _Why do you care?_ She doesn’t understand, not yet, but she’s starting to want to.

The room is crowded with bodies and blankets. They squish together in front of the tv. An arm is around her shoulder. Someone’s head is in her lap. A snake is draped across all of them. She cannot imagine going back to life without this.

There’s a body on the ground. It is painfully small. Mutilated in life, and now even further twisted in death, the boy’s plastic arm is shiny with blood.

“Hey sweetheart! You aren’t supposed to be here!”

“Aww, sweetheart. That’s adorable.”

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

The bed is warm. A calloused hand strokes her cheek, and a breathy giggle. “Looking pretty pretty, sweetheart.” There’s a knife in the bedside table drawer.

Eyes lock, blue meeting brown and yellow. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The smell of gunpowder. The shot rings in her ears, over and over and over again, and it hurts it hurts it _hurts_ so much as all she feels is empty _rage_ –

Yellow eyes with red pupils, she hates them, hates him, and he smiles and she _wants him dead_.

Yellow-red eyes, pressure on her chest. Black water sloshes around them and her heart is too hurt to even ache anymore after every new loss, one after another _(she had just found them, she had only begun to know them and adore them)_ and grief is absorbed by the malice she feels towards the god but it still hurts so much.

_They are dying. They are dead. There’s nothing left._

There’s a sea and a sky made of nothing. Black water that tastes of void and the absence of heat. An island. A serpent. A woman. She vomits cold.

There’s a man on the ground at her feet. He is not dead, but he soon will be. He looks up with pleading eyes, this man who would be God (a fool tricked who would have destroyed himself in the end). Her hands clench. She makes a choice.

It feels _good_.

“A deal?”

“A bet, serpent.”

“I’m so glad I met you. Whatever happens, I… I… the bonds we have made will never be truly gone.”

“What would you wager?”

“What do you want?”

_What do I want? I want the very universe itself, serpent. The universe you stole from me._

_What will I wager? What’s the worth of the world, serpent?_

_Everything._

“Heya sweetheart. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

~o0o~

**X/X/20XX  
XXXXX  
Evening  
New Moon**

The dream came back into focus.

She sat at the counter of a cafe, the surface beneath her a mixture of plastic, polished wood and metal. She sipped coffee that was a thousand different flavours, but the dominating taste was cheap and burnt. The walls were fragmented, cobbled together out of several different buildings, and the yellow-eyed man behind the counter hummed loudly as he cheerfully wrote out what she knew was a resignation letter that the man had always fantasied about but would never send.

The door was thrown open, slamming against the corner of an awkwardly-placed booth. The chime was discordant and chaotic, a hundred different bells and a jingles and a buzzes all at once.

“Commander!”

Two sets of footsteps entered, sloshing through the ankle-deep water. They stopped behind her.

She didn’t looked up, kept staring at the coffee in her hands. She had metal arm-guards, she noticed through the haze, and traced the engraved patterns with her eyes.

Everything felt heavy, so _so_ heavy. It wasn’t the armour on her body for she was used to the weight, found it comforting even like a heavy blanket in the coldest winter, but there something on her soul that made breathing itself a labour and swamped her mind with tar. Exhaustion and apathy and a grey static buzzing in her ears.

“Tomo…” the voice, male and young, known and safe enough to keep her back to him, said softly. Sadly, almost worried. It made something ache, something hurt, not sharply but steadily and tightly like plastic wrap.

Silence. The yellow-eyed man humming. Pen scratching on paper.

Commander sighed.

“No real names here,” she reminded him, without heart.

“But we’re in a safe zone, Commander,” the boy said, almost cheekily underneath the hesitation, sliding into the seat beside her.

“Habits, Shotgun,” she retorted, looking up to give him a mild glare that they both knew meant nothing. “And there’s a shadow. This ain’t the church.”

She knew him, this boy, and the sight of him was enough to bring her a small amount of comfort even now. Cunning brown eyes and curly brown hair, a sly, teasing grin even though it was tinged with unease. He wore amour and carried weapons, like she did, and had green paint on his face, staining his eyelids and crawling down the sides of his face and cheeks, with a thick line from the bottom of his mouth to his chin.

The yellow-eyed man glanced up momentarily, before returning to his letter. His writing was large and jagged, some of the paper torn in his zeal.

Another person sat down on her other side. A girl, and when Commander glanced up to look, she flashed a quick, nervous smile. Straw-blonde hair in a messy braid and brown doe eyes underlined with red paint, lips stained bloody with lines from the corner of her mouth down to her jawline. There were dots along her eyebrows and on the sides of the bridge of her nose and a cross on her forehead. She, too, was not unarmed nor unarmored.

Another pause, another silence characterized by unsurety and hesitation before Commander deigned to break it. “Why are you here?”

“We’re– we’re worried Ki-cha– Commander,” the girl said quietly.

“All of us are,” Shotgun added. “What you did, after Chiori–”

The cup shattered. Lukewarm coffee dripped off her hands, and somehow it burned like liquid fire. She still welcomed the warmth, the heat, even in the form of a painful echo of what once was.

Commander inhaled sharply. “I don’t get how that’s any of your business,” she bit out frigidly. “And it’s not like you cared before.”

She didn’t see it, but she felt them both flinch. There was momentary flash of guilt, but it was quickly subsumed by petty satisfaction. She had always been the one to bite her tongue until it bled, the one to fix all everyone’s hang-ups and problems at the drop of a hat, at first out of necessity and then out of love. Her grip tightened more, the cup shards crunching between her fingers and slicing into her palms until blood fell onto the countertop.

She loved them. Adored them. What a horrible thing.

Still, she was surprised they hadn’t left her, turned her in or ran away. She never would have guessed the devotion of rank 10 was a mutual one, or that it ran this deep. She was so used to abandonment, it seemed, that it had never registered as a possibility.

“Commander…” the girl whispered like her heart was breaking and Commander didn’t have the energy to even begin thinking about how to fix it, not when grief was eating at her own.

“That’s enough Medic,” she ordered, pushing away from the counter and sliding off the stool. Her feet were submerged in the black water with a small splash. It was freezing, a biting cold that gnawed at her flesh, but she could withstand much colder. “The flooding is getting worse and we need to focus on that. There’s no telling what effect it will have.”

She walked to the door. Neither Medic nor Shotgun got up from their seats, but she could feel them watching her. Commander sighed.

“Look,” she said, a little gentler, hand on the glass/metal/wood door. She had never been good at soft, at kind, but she had been learning. Had no choice when people kept shoving their fragile hearts into her hands like she knew how to care for them, like she wouldn’t destroy them, hurt them and kill them slowly until all that was left was ruins. That somewhere deep down, she wouldn’t _like it_. “I know what happened was– was fucked up. For all of us. But I’m dealing with it. We need to focus on what’s happening right now.”

She pushed open the door and she–

~o0o~

**4/9/2018  
Monday  
Morning  
Half Moon**

–woke up.

Tomoki woke up. She was not startled out of a deep sleep, nor did she wake up slowly, groggily, gently surfacing to consciousness. Just, one moment asleep, the next awake, lying on her back and staring up at the ceiling. Sunlight was streaming through the window, the pale yellow of an early morning. She didn’t even remember opening her eyes.

Her dream did not fade from her mind. Neither dream did, the blue room or the café. And they didn’t feel like dreams either, they felt like something that had actually happened, a little faded and hazy but nonetheless solid. The blue room ( _the Velvet Room,_ a voice said, a voice corrected) had be unreal, slightly distorted in a way she _knew_ was impossible, but it had felt real. And sitting in a surreal café that was like someone had haphazardly fused a dozen different coffeeshops together, sitting with those two people—Shotgun and Medic, she had called them, and she felt a strange displaced sorrow at the thought of them, a yearning for something she had never known—had also been far too detailed and lucid for a normal dream, still abstract but more memory than imagination.

What had occurred between the two clear dreams, what bridged them, well, that was a jumbled mess. Disorienting flashes, concepts and images crashing and clashing into each other until they had finally solidified into that café. Perhaps a thread of logic here or there, a stream-of-conscious narrative that made no sense in the light of day, but still normal dream stuff. Something about keys?

She must not have gotten much sleep, she thought, or what she did get hadn’t been particularly restful. She still felt tired, perhaps not as badly as yesterday but still unwell. Perhaps she could take Mai’s offer and fake sick?

No, no, she thought as she rolled over, pressing her face in her pillow. It smelled like cheap detergent. She had to go to school.

Mai already thought her weak. Staying home would only reaffirm that assumption, or worse, give Mai some leverage for a later date. And she needed to figure out the best way to present herself, which required knowledge of the school culture. Going to school was important today.

_You know today will be important._

Plus there was her mother, the only reason she was going to high school in the first place.

She groaned loudly, muffled by the pillow. Her first day of senior high school. It couldn’t be that much different from junior high, could it?

_You know it is._

She groaned again.

Tomoki rolled off the bed and onto the floor with a thud and a grunt. She hated leaving the warmth but she was good at suffering the cold. She squirmed out of her tangled comforter and crawled over to the box shoved into the corner of the room.

The school uniform, she discovered, wasn’t that bad. It was a navy blue blazer and skirt over a white dress shirt with a red and grey diagonally striped tie. The inside of the blazer was red while the buttons and school crest were yellow. The simplified crest itself took the form of a heater shield divided vertically down the middle, with one side taken up with a cross and the other a snake.

The full crest, not on the blazer, also had two banners, one at the top of the shield and one at the bottom. The top had the school’s name, Nanakorobi Public High School. The bottom banner had the school’s motto, _alea iacta est_.

Tomoki did not know how she knew this. She had never seen the full logo, hadn’t even bothered looking up the school on the train because school was something to endure rather than a way to survive, but she must have seen it before. Perhaps on the entrance exam? Otherwise, how would she know?

She got dressed (somehow knowing how to tie the tie perfectly, despite never having done so before. All her previous school uniforms had ribbons and neckerchiefs) and after rifling through her duffle bag for her toiletries, stepped out into the hall.

“You’re up,” Mai greeted her. It was more an observation than a question.

The woman was sitting at the kitchen island, hands wrapped around a steaming mug. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and looked absolutely exhausted, deep shadows under her eyes. Tomoki wondered if she had slept at all.

“I thought you’d sleep longer,” Mai continued.

“You didn’t try to wake me up?”

Mai shrugged. “Figured you were tired. I was about to call the school.”

Tomoki frowned. That would be a bad first impression, staying home on her first day. And today was important. Mai had no right to make that decision.

“I’m fine.”

Mai eyed her suspiciously and Tomoki ignored it the best she could. “You don’t look fine.”

“Because I haven’t washed my face. Excuse me.” Tomoki escaped to the bathroom before Mai could stop her.

Mai, Tomoki decided as she furiously scrubbed her face, was very nosy. And a hypocrite. Couldn’t they both just mind their own goddamn business already? It’d make things so much easier if they could just skip the posturing.

Patience, she reminded herself like the very word didn’t make her grind her teeth down to nubs. It would take time to learn how to work around this new adult, figure out what made Mai tick and how to deal with her. Until then, she had to endure the adjustment period as she always did, and not let her guard down. She would figure out the new rules and adapt.

_“But do you want that?”_

Of course she did, why else would she be thinking it–

Tomoki, tired and annoyed as she was, could be forgiven for not noticing that the question was not a function of her internal monologue until she looked up at the mirror and found it frosted over.

Except it wasn’t really frosted over, at least not on Tomoki’s side. The ice existed on the other side of the glass, making it more like an iced-over window than a mirror She couldn’t make out her reflection, couldn’t make out much at all except for an undefined shadow.

A hand pressed against the mirror. It took a moment for Tomoki to realize it was her own.

_“Do you not remember me?”_

The figure grew both darker and smaller and more defined, as if moving closer. Yet it was still large. The voice was deep, yet still undoubtably female. Cold and powerful, firm and commanding. Strength not restrained but whole-heartedly embraced, dripping with powerful emotion.

_“Why are you suppressing me again? Why do you swallow your anger and fear and pain? Will you allow the world to kill you slowly? Kill all you care for? Do you not know that there is a serpent to hunt?”_

Tomoki was paralyzed, both caught in a daze and frozen by fear, ice now spreading on her side of the mirror from where her hand touched the glass. Her breath came out in clouds of condensation.

_“Do you know me? Or must I wait longer?”_

Arm moving on its own, as if controlled by another, Tomoki’s swiped her hand across the glass. The frost that was now on both sides of the mirror, somehow, was wiped off by a hand as the thing on the other side perfectly imitated the action.

She couldn’t accurately describe was she saw, too strange and partially obscured by frost, but it was certainly inhuman. And tall, kneeling in order to match Tomoki’s height and still a little taller despite that. Pale blue skin with frost crawling along the jaw and up the side of the face. A strong grecian nose, solid cyan eyes with no whites or pupils, and far too many thick canines crowding the black-lipped mouth. The glass was still too cloudy to see many details.

“I-I,” she choked, hands gripping the porcelain sink. Ice spread out from beneath them, and soon the sink and part of the wall was frozen over. She was chilled to the bone, but the cold was not what was making her shake.

A pause. _“I see.”_

She blinked, and the inhuman being was gone. Instead it was her own face, her own reflection, only not.

_“There’s war coming. You must prepare.”_

The reflection had snow in her matted hair and pale skin tinged with blue-black frostbite. A haunted expression and bruised eyes, mouth a grim line, and her eyes a brilliant sunflower yellow. Her voice was oddly layered in a way the prior… thing’s was not, distorted, discordant, and disconcerting. But still so much like Tomoki’s beneath the distortion and the slighter deeper tone.

 _“Don’t let the serpent win,”_ the yellow-eyed doppelgänger warned. _“Do whatever you have to in order to protect what is ours and to win the wager. Whatever you must.”_

Her feet were frozen to the tile floor. Her hands were stuck to the sink. She tried to pull away.

_“You cannot escape me. No, I am always with you. And you will need me.”_

She pulled and pulled and the ice refused to give.

_“I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting.”_

The ice snapped and Tomoki stumbled back, gasping out a breath she didn’t known she was holding as her back slammed against the wall. When she looked back up, there was no sign that anything had happened at all except for the rapidly melting ice dripping off the mirror and porcelain.

 _Don’t make us wait too long, child._ her internal voice whispered, only for the first time she noticed it wasn’t entirely her own.

And Tomoki was scared.

~o0o~

**4/9/2018  
Monday  
Morning  
Half Moon**

It was just one thing after another, Tomoki was beginning to realize. First the nightmare, then the creep on the train, then embarrassing herself in front of Mai and weird deja vu, more weird dreams, outright hallucinations, and now she was squatting awkwardly in the bathroom trying desperately to soak up all the water with a towel from the melted ice without getting her new uniform wet, though her socks were already a lost cause. Her hands stung, a raw red from the cold, and she tried to ignore how they were shaking.

She didn’t know how Mai would react or how to even begin to explain how the entire bathroom got soaked from floor to ceiling, so she turned on the shower to explain the wet towels and got to work. Hopefully any lingering dampness could be blamed on the steam from the shower, and that Mai wasn’t the sort to get upset over small things like a little water. She didn’t seem like the type, but it was better to be cautious.

It sucked, especially since the water was proof that either her hallucination had not ended, being unnervingly prologued and complex—and Tomoki knew she had problems, but she didn’t think they had progressed to full-on psychosis just yet—or that there really was some sort of reality to all the bullshit that had happened over the past dozen hours. It was weird and unnerving and her stomach kept twisting into knots over it.

She did not like it. At all.

But what could she do? Tell someone? Who, Mai? Or god forbid, her mother? Hah! She would laugh if it didn’t taste so bitter, unable to even swallow the foul taste with such a painful lump in her throat. No, she was on her own. Always on her own because they wouldn’t help or wouldn’t understand or maybe there really was something wrong with her and–

 _You can trust Mai, remember?_ the not-her inner voice said.

Mai, who smelled like alcohol and perfume. Mai, who loved video games and strange teas and would be on her side even if she told her _everything_ (how did she know all this–)

No. No, she did not remember, and would have to deal with this alone. No one could find out.

Still, she felt she was nearing a new limit to how much crazy bullshit she could take in a day—and it was still _morning_ which meant she couldn’t even take a nap.

And she still had to go to school, because of course she did, there was no universe in which she did not go to school because school was a constant in her life as much as it was a constant source of misery.

The bathroom was as dry as it was going to get. She picked up the wet towels, turned off the shower, peeled off her wet socks, and left.

Mai was still at the counter, slowly chewing on some store-bought onigiri as if every bite pained her, staring glassily at the wrapper. Tomoki kept walking towards the balcony like she wasn’t doing anything weird at all, her bare feet slapping on the floorboards with confidence, and hoped Mai thought the same.

She stepped out onto the balcony to hang up the towels and socks. The air was cool and sweet, even mixed with the pollution of the city. Rural areas always smelled nicer, fresh and clear and sharp. But that clarity was contradicted the low energy of small towns, which was lethargic, listless, hanging thick and heavy like a fog. The bustle of the city kept her awake and active at least, if only because she was being dragged along by the endless undertow of people and technology constantly on the move.

“Do you want me to go with you? It is your first day of high school,” Mai offered as Tomoki walked back inside.

“No.” It didn’t even require consideration.

There was silence. Tomoki shuffled past Mai.

“Okay,” Mai said quietly.

Good.

That was good.

Good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, sorry it took so long to update. University kicked my ass, and then my ADHD wasn't cooperating.  
> I've also got a discord for my fics! Join at https://discord.gg/QwHqDeR


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